How People Really Make Decisions

Recent research has documented for the first time how people actually make decisions. An interdisciplinary team, based at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin and Munich) and the University of Chicago, has published results of extensive inquiries into the methods people use in all kinds of situations. This study, Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart (Oxford University Press, 2000), documents the specific techniques people use for making decisions quickly based on a minimal amount of information.

It turns out that people use a limited set of decision-making strategies or techniques. We use them from the time we’re children (kids who are taking “multiple-guess” tests in school resort to these ...

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